Thursday, February 5, 2009

Fire Breaks Out in Beacon Hill

Celeste described to me what she witnessed and I wrote it as a feature story.

A two-alarm fire broke out in an apartment building in Beacon Hill next to the State House last Friday. Black smoke shot out the windows sending residents scurrying for safety. Celeste Lam witnessed the fire from her office in John McCormack State Building.

The fire started about 4:20 p.m, “I smelled something really bad,” said Ms. Lam. She was informed of the blaze when a coworker brought up that the stench was coming from a fire down the street. “I was afraid because my apartment is near this building,” said Ms. Lam.

Three units worked quickly to extinguish the fire before it spread to any adjoining buildings including a threat to the nearby State House. “The firefighters arrived in five minutes,” said Lam.

The firefighters discovered immediately upon arrival that their fire trucks were too wide to get through the narrow streets in Beacon Hill.

“The firemen went to the very top of the buildings,” said Lam, “They jumped from one building to the next in order to get to the fire."

According to Ms. Lam the firefighters made an assembly line passing the hose from one another while balancing themselves on the ladder. “The firefighters had to pound on the window to get it open. There was huge piles of black smoke,” said Lam.

The firefighters who responded to the blaze had it under control by 5:00pm.

Officials have not released the cause of the fire. There were no reported injuries.